Tuesday, January 22, 2008

What is the Whole Heart Path?

What is the Whole Heart Path?

It has been said that, “We are spiritual beings having a human experience”.What is the human experience? The answer to that question begins with choice.As human beings, we can choose to act in a spiritual way.

There are many choices that human beings have the opportunity to make that differentiate us from animals.We don’t always make those choices, but we do have the option.For example, one thing that differentiates us from animals is our ability to use reason and logic, to make logical choices.Another is that we have the ability to understand morality and make moral choices.Two other choices that define spirituality are “mercy” and “kindness”.We as humans have the ability to choose to be merciful and kind.And as humans, when we feel our instinctual drives, we can make the choice as to whether we will act on them or not.

Spirituality is the act of seeking what some call a higher state of mind and body.It is seeking a connection with the greatest source of joy and bliss that exists.It is seeking a higher understanding of life, a higher purpose than that which we find in our material existence.Spirituality is choosing to seek a life that is sacred.The Whole Heart Path is a sacred path. In my discussions of spirituality, I will not include religion because that is a completely different subject.Often when I say spiritual, people bring up religion.They will say things like, “Oh, I’m not a religious person.”You don’t have to be a religious person or have any religious involvement at all to be on the Whole Heart Path.

Spirituality connects us to each other.We feel that we are a part of something greater.It is a core feeling that we are not alone, that we are not floating aimlessly through space and time without ties or roots.When we are not in touch with our spirituality, we feel the deepest form of loneliness that exists and we are compelled to bury that loneliness and emptiness with some form of distraction so that we don’t have to feel it so intensely.We still feel it to some degree, but not as intensely.We become addicted to these distractions because when we don’t have them, we must feel the fear and pain of that loneliness and emptiness.

Spirituality can become obscured by the daily and mundane tasks of living our lives. The human experience can be so challenging at times.As spiritual beings having a human experience, we sometimes lose sight of our spiritual choices within the human experience.When this happens we feel the hole in our gut, the pain of that meaningless emptiness that consumes our lives and it is overwhelming.We crave a sacred, spiritual life.At some level, I believe, we all seek it. The spiritual life path can seem scary.It can seem lonely.There are times of seeking when we are in between the conscious and unconscious states of existence. It can become so difficult to stay present.Before we even realize that we are doing it, we are finding ways to bury the pain of the emptiness we feel from the hole in our gut.

Many of us have forgotten what it feels like to be spiritual.We have become disconnected from each other, desensitized to kindness and mercy.On television every day we see our inhumanity towards each other. We see the killing, the pain and suffering, the sadness.The tragic date of September 11th, 2002 brings to mind an extreme example of how we as human beings become so detached, we dehumanize ourselves and each other.It is too easy to say, “I’m innocent.Someone else did that. How could they do that?I would never do that.”The truth is that we are all a part of the human race, connected at the core of our being, so when one of us is sick, at some level, that sickness lives in all of us.

Socially, we experience a tremendous lack of compassion for human problems and challenges.In the past, we watched out for each other, there was a much stronger sense of community.When a family was having problems, their community offered assistance and support. There were more adults around to accept the responsibility of mentoring the young people.The human element is still there, but more and more it seems, we experience each other as the source of our unhappiness.Each of us as individuals has the choice to seek a spiritual answer to our unhappiness, to recover our heart, and there are many paths.The Whole Heart Path offers you an opportunity to connect with yourself and others in a more authentic way, to have more peace, happiness and harmony in your relationships and in your life.